Turn and Face the Strange
by thebarefootflapper
Summary: Rush hour at Bristol Temple Meads - two former lovers come face-to-face for the first time in twenty years and one split second is all it takes to make time stand still. Taking a leap of faith, Sybil asks Tom to meet her in a place that played a massive part in their history and could very well shape the course of their future...
1. A Brief Encounter

A smartly dressed woman climbs out of the taxi outside Temple Meads station, quickly glancing at the watch on her wrist and breathing a sigh of relief that they've managed to make it on time - the weather is horrendous and she can't remember the last time she saw traffic so bad, at least not since she left London all those years ago. Having already retrieved her suitcase from the boot of the car, the driver holds the door open for her like some sort of chauffeur from the days of old. With a dazzling smile, she hands him a ten pound note and tells him to keep the change - from the look on his face, it might just be the best thing that's happened to him all morning.

_**-xxx-**_

A slightly dishevelled looking man in a grey woollen overcoat and an ill-fitting suit steps off the delayed eight-fifty-four from Manchester, cursing the incompetency of National Rail as he pushes his way through the throng of rush-hour commuters. He's trapped between a youth blaring music through obscenely large headphones and a woman pushing a buggy with one hand and dragging a wailing toddler behind her with the other, everyone around them moving at a snail's pace. These are the sorts of things that irritate him more than they used to and that's how he knows that he's getting old. A small gap opens up and he decides to chance it, pushing his way through and murmuring half-hearted apologies (he really needs to learn to stop being so polite sometimes) as he treads on a couple of toes. Finally free, he breathes in the clear air and knows that, as long as nothing else distracts him, he might just be in with a shot of making this meeting on time.

Though, of course, nothing ever quite goes to plan.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he knows who it will be before he even looks - he rarely hears from her these days, but he can guarantee that she'll text during the most inconvenient of times whenever she wants something but, like the fool that he is, he'll no doubt walk over hot coals to get it for her.

He can't help but wonder when the hell he became such a pushover.

_**-xxx-**_

In the end, they're probably both to blame for what happened - he's not really paying much attention and she's more concerned with trying to secure the lid back on top of one of the most god awful cups of tea she's ever tasted, having put several sugars in it in an attempt to salvage it slightly. He clatters into her, causing much of the contents of the thin cardboard cup to spill down the front of her camel coloured trench coat.

"Shit!" he curses. "I'm sorry. I wasn't..."

"No, no," she interrupts, pulling a tissue from out of her pocket and sets about trying to clean up as much of the mess that she can. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

He too takes out a clean tissue and hands it to her, feeling as though it's the least he can do given the circumstances. "Let me buy you another one."

"Please don't," she says. "It's bloody awful."

He laughs and only then does he properly look at her for the first time, his jaw dropping at the sight before him. "My God," he says. "Sybil? Is it really you?"

She looks up at him and smiles. There's no mistaking those eyes - eyes which she hasn't looked into in what feels like a lifetime. "Hello, Tom," she says.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, unsure of what to say. "It... it's good to see you," he says at last. "God, it must have been... you know, I'm not even sure."

"Twenty years," she tells him. "Twenty years next Thursday to be precise."

"Wow," he says quietly. "You... you look great."

Sybil blushes like that eighteen-year-old girl she'd been when they first met. "It's not real," she smirks. "Flattering lighting and Mary's had me on those posh face creams since before I turned thirty. Not to mention the fact that, with all the grey hairs I found in my first two years as an A and E doctor, I'm surprised I'm not completely snow white yet."

Tom can't help but laugh. "So you did it?" he asks. "You really are a doctor?"

She nods and flashes him a rather proud smile. "I'm a consultant specialising in maternity and neo-natal care."

"Oh," he says, impressed but surprised at the same time. "That's brilliant, but I thought it was paediatrics you wanted to do."

"I did but, well... you know how it is," she says. "Things happen and they never quite end up how you think they will."

Her words hang awkwardly in the air between them, unintentionally alluding to all that had transpired between them in those last few life-changing days all those years ago. It's strange that they should meet here and now - so spectacularly randomly during rush hour in Bristol - when their lives had followed completely different paths when they'd ended their journey together.

"So, umm, what about you?" Sybil asks in an attempt to diffuse the obvious tension. "Are you some high flying politician back in Ireland like you always wanted to do?"  
Tom laughs nervously. "No, not quite," he says. "I'm a journalist... and not a very well paid one at that," he adds, taking in the sight of the immaculately dressed woman before him and feeling like a pauper in comparison. "But it's enough to get by and I enjoy what I do... most of the time, anyway."

"Well that's something, I suppose," she replies. "Look, Tom, I..."

"_This is a platform alteration_," a man with a thick West Country accent announces over the tannoy. "_The nine-twenty-one to Cardiff Central will now depart from platform four_."

"That's me," she says, quickly glancing at her watch. "I should probably go."

"Back to Cardiff?"

Sybil nods. "Yes, I'm still there," she tells him. "I planned to go back to London but they kept me on at the Heath. Worked out better in the long run."

"So I can see," he replies with that crooked smile that, once upon a time, would have left her weak at the knees. "Well, I guess this is it then."

"Mmm... it was nice to see you," she says. "However brief it was."

"And you. Take care of yourself."

"I will... bye, Tom."

He watches her turn to leave with a very pretty smile in his direction and, in that split second, he decides that he isn't just going to stand by and do nothing this time. "Sybil, wait!" he calls after her.

"Yes?" she asks, turning her head and flipping her long dark curls over her shoulder as she does so.

"Look, Sybil, the last time we saw each other, things weren't great."

"Well that's one way of putting it."

"I know," he agrees sheepishly. "And even to this day I hate myself for it. So please... can we just start over? Take my number and if you want to call me then call me... it's all on your terms. I know I don't deserve a second chance, but I'd like to think that that same forgiving and compassionate girl is still in there somewhere."

Without really thinking about what she's doing, Sybil reaches into her handbag (which Tom suspects is worth more than twice what he pays in rent each month) and hands him her phone. "This doesn't mean that I will," she tells him, watching as his still nimble fingers type in the digits. She wants to tell him that there can be **no** second chances, that everything is different now and she's not that same girl he still hopes she is.

But then this is Tom...

And Tom has always been able to weave some kind of spell over her.

"Just think about it," he says, handing her back the phone. "Even if it's only to say goodbye."

She nods in understanding. "I will," she says sombrely. "But now I really must be going. I'm meeting Gwen for lunch."

"Gwen? As in Gwen Dawson?"

"Williams, she is now, but yes," Sybil replies. "It's her birthday."

"Oh, well, give her my best."

Sybil quirks an eyebrow at him. "I'm sure she'd love that."

"Yeah, probably best not to then," Tom replies, running a hand through his hair once more as he recalls what had happened the last time he and Gwen had crossed paths. "But, either way, have a good day."

"And you, Tom... and it really was nice to see you again."

She does indeed leave him this time, not even worried that the clock is ticking and she needs to make her train, for time had quite literally just stood still for a moment, perhaps even rewound, and she had found herself standing face-to-face with the one man she had once hoped she would never see again for as long as she lived.

And just like she did last time, she doesn't look back.

**_-xxx- _**

He's crossing a bridge over the River Avon, strolling casually into town, no longer seeming to care that he has places to be and people to see. They can wait for now, he's no use to any of them in this state as it is - every single emotion that it was possible for a human being to feel races though his body. Anger, regret, joy and pride to name but a few as he replays that brief encounter again and again.

Had it really been twenty years?

Twenty years since she had run from him heartbroken and distraught, all because of his own stupidity (well, he now knows that that's not completely true, but he's still the one mostly at fault for what happened). For the first time in so very long, he finds himself pondering what could have been if things had turned out differently. Once again, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket - it's probably **her **again, and he'll have to answer her this time or she'll only either sulk or continue to pester him until he does.

But it isn't.

It's from a number he doesn't recognise, but one which gives him hope all the same.

ROALD DHAL PLAS. 8PM. MEET ME THERE.

SYBIL.


	2. Take Me Back to the Start

**Cardiff, Twenty-Three Years Earlier**

"For god's sake, Edith!" he hears a haughty young woman huff from somewhere out in the hallway. "How hard is it to keep the bloody door open?"

"I've got my hands full!" another voice says. "The only thing you're carrying is the toaster and I can't see why that's even necessary."

"Well, you never know."

"You went to Oxford," the second voice quips. "You wouldn't know a thing about real university."

"Well then maybe I'll just have to come and stay with you to get a taste of the real world."

"Like hell you will."

He shakes his head as he sits on the narrow bed and eats his cereal - trust him to get the flatmate who bickers with a sibling (he's had enough of all that to last him a lifetime). Saying that though, it might be nice to have a little something that reminds him of home. It's not that he gets homesick as such, but a lot has happened over the past couple of years that it was hard to leave. It was his mother who had talked him into going in the end though, saying that it was what he'd always wanted to do and that he's put it off on her account for far too long now. Reluctantly, he'd accepted the offer, packed his bags and left Ireland for South Wales.

Hearing clattering from the room opposite his, he senses his chance to venture into the kitchen at last and take stock of how much fridge space he has left before the others start to take over. To him, sharing this tiny flat with five other people is no great hardship - there could be up to seven of them at any given time back at his parent's house, but it had been nice just to have some privacy for the past week or so before everyone else started to move in. In an ideal world, he would have loved to have begun to make a dent in his reading, but the book lists weren't due to be distributed until their first week of lectures and so, truth be told, he'd been a little bit bored. Still, form what he'd gathered, Cardiff was a bright and vibrant city and there was always something going on. He'd sat with a map and a tourists guide, looking for things to do or places to see which would pique his interest - the museum, the various castles (Cardiff, Caerphilly and Castell Coch all being within reach), the beaches down in Barry and over in Pembrokeshire and an awful lot of rugby. Wales, it seemed, was the ideal place for him and, once he was back in his comfort zone having immersed himself in his studies once more, he could be very happy here.

And what he sees when he steps into the kitchen only makes him even more sure of that.

There's a girl - one he hasn't seen before - standing there on her tiptoes as she puts bags of what looks to be every possible kind of pasta known to mankind into one of the cupboards above the sink. She's got her headphones in, her music loud as she sings to herself (she's a little out tune, but not half bad). It's almost as though she knows that she's no longer alone and turns to look at him, flicking her long dark curls over her shoulder as she does so and gives him a shy smile.

"Sorry," she says bashfully as she pulls out her headphones and stuffs them into the back pocket of her jeans. "I didn't think anyone else was here."

"'Fraid so," he replies, abandoning his empty bowl on the table for the time being. "But you were enjoying yourself, right?"

The girl laughs. "I'm trying to drown out the sound of my sisters," she says, "You can't tell me you haven't heard them bickering. I'll admit, it's one of the few things I'm not going to miss about living at home."

"Oh," he replies, slightly shocked. "So you're my new flatmate? I thought it was the other one... not the one who went to Oxford though."

"Edith? No, she's... well, she's supposed to be at UCL but she dropped out. Don't tell my parents that though. They don't know... I don't even think she knows that I know. I'm Sybil, by the way, sorry... I'm telling you my life story and yet you don't even know my name."

This makes him laugh - this girl, Sybil, is cute. Cute in the endearing sense that is - she seems sweet and sunny in a way that contrasts with her slightly tougher looking rock and roll exterior. She's wearing a pair of battered old red converse trainers, impossibly tight jeans and a David Bowie t-shirt. There's black kohl smudged around her eyes and a black leather jacket draped over the back of one of the chairs. She's classically beautiful in an odd sort of way, but he tries to see past all that on account of how young she must be.

"Tom," he says after a pause that feels infinitely longer than it probably was. "Nice to meet you."

"And you," she replies. "So... what are you studying?"

"Law and politics. You?"

"Medicine."

"Wow."

"You sound intimidated."

"I am a bit."

"Really?"

"No," he laughs. "I just liked the look on your face when I said that. No but, seriously, I thought the med school was based up at the Heath."

"It is," Sybil tells him. "But I think we're pretty much just doing bioscience this year so we're on the Cathays campus same as you guys. It'll be nice to have someone to walk to lectures to with, or am I getting a head of myself again?"

"Not at all. Plans for tonight?"

Sybil shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "I don't think there's really anything happening until Saturday, is there?"

Tom shakes his head. "Nothing official, but a girl from one of the flats downstairs came up before to say that there's a bit of a gathering down there before maybe heading out into town. Revs, I think they said."

Sybil wrinkles her nose. "I'll think about it," she replies. "I've never really been in to that whole partying thing. Saying that, there's not much opportunity for it where I'm from."

"Which is?"

"Yorkshire. Proper rural Yorkshire."

"Like brass bands and coal mines Yorkshire?"

"Almost."

"You don't sound like you're from Yorkshire. For one thing, you're able to correctly say the word the."

Sybil giggles - God, even her laugh is adorable. "I take it I'm right in saying that you're hardly a local boy yourself?"

"What gave you that idea?"

"Northern or Republic of."

"Republic. Proper Ireland."

"Ooooh, now there's a contentious issue."

"Don't get me talking about politics now, you'll have me here all day."

"I don't mind," she shrugs. "I'm interested in politics."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," she nods. "I'm going to be a doctor, I have a vested interest in the future of the NHS. Some of the other stuff is a bit of a blur to me though and I can't pretend to understand."

"Stick with me, kid," he smirks. "And I'll have you ready to run for Prime Minister in next to no time."

"I'll leave that to you I think," she replies. "But thank you for the offer."

"Sybil!" A voice calls from the doorway and both turn to see Mary standing there, holding a toaster and looking a little breathless and dishevelled. She turns her attention back to the boy in the striped pyjama pants and a green hoody bearing the crest of his old rugby team, eying him up with a look that's warning him to stay away from her baby sister. "Papa's ready to bring the next load up. Stop flirting and come and help."

"We weren't... I'm not..."

"I'll give you a hand."

"Thank you. You don't have to you know... oh, by the way, this is my sister, Mary. Mary, this is Tom."

"Nice to meet you."

"Charmed."

Sybil rolls her eyes - Mary rarely takes kindly to anyone upon their first meeting (even her own boyfriend hadn't been immune to her inner Ice Queen in the beginning) and her new housemate doesn't seem to be an exception.

"It's alright," Sybil says quietly as they follow Mary out of the little flat and down the stairs. "She's like that with everybody. You'll get used to it."

Tom chuckles. "I'm sure I will."

_**-xxx- **_

Sybil's goodbyes to her family are emotional, her mother running back to give her one final hug before starting the long drive back north, leaving her baby girl in a new and strange city all on her own. She's sitting on her bed drying away the last of her tears when Tom finds her, gently knocking on the open door to get her attention.

"Do you want to come for a walk?"

Sybil nods. "Only if it's not to Tesco," she sniffs. "That place was madness."

"Not Tesco, I promise... come on, I know just the spot."

Just a stone's throw from their halls of residence is the magnificent Bute Park, a sprawling one-hundred-and-thirty acre ocean of tranquillity right in the heart of a bustling city. There's so much of it to explore but Tom doesn't take her very far, just to a nearby bridge over the river Taff.

"I didn't think it would be that hard," she says, staring into the swirling rapids of the Blackweir. "I've been so excited about this since getting my results and I've wanted to leave home for as long as I can remember. Now that reality's finally caught up with me, it's much different than I anticipated."

"It's only natural, kid, they're your family after all..."

"You know, you keep calling me kid," she interrupts. "Why?"

Tom looks at her sheepishly. "I'm sorry," he apologises. "I don't even think I realised I was doing it. I've only known you a couple of hours and already you remind me so much of my sister... that's what I call her sometimes."

"Do you have many brothers and sisters?"

"I'm one of five. Three older brothers and then Órlaith."

"That's a beautiful name."

"She's a beautiful girl," he replies. "Though sometimes I forget just how grown up she is."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you look older than eighteen."

Tom runs a hand through his hair. "Just a bit," he replies. "I'm twenty-one. Twenty-two in November. Too old for all this Freshers stuff, but not old enough to be classed as a mature student."

Sybil nods in understanding. "So, what was it? An extended gap year? Couldn't make up your mind what you wanted to do?"

"My father died," he says bluntly. "When I was seventeen. Mam didn't take it well, one of my brothers hit the bottle and ended up in prison... it was just a big mess."

"I'm sorry," Sybil says quietly. "I didn't think..."

"You couldn't have known," Tom replies. "Don't apologise."

"Makes my reasons for wanting to leave home so stupid and selfish in comparison."

"What were they."

Sybil sighs. "You won't believe me."

"Try me."

"My father's an Earl."

"You're kidding, right?"

Sybil shakes her head. "Nope."

"Shit."

"I can't really complain," Sybil says. "I've had a very privileged life and there are so many people who are worse off, but it's not the life for me. It's not like it used to be in the olden days, but there's still so much expected of you. It's more of a ceremonial position these days given the fact that our family's estate is in the hands of the National Trust for much of the year. I went to all the right schools and all the right clubs, but there's just this hypocrisy to it all that I just needed to get away from. I've been to fancy parties and worn tiaras and diamonds, but it's not the fairytale everyone thinks it is..."

"So you're the princess who's looking to escape from her tower, is that it?"

Sybil looks up at Tom and then back out across the water. "I suppose so... but I don't know if this story ends with a happily ever after."

"Kid, only you have the power to decide whether or not it does."

She smiles at him before drumming her hands on the wooden railing. "So, this party tonight. Are we going?"

"Do you want to?"

"Yes... and promise me one thing. Don't take me home until I'm drunk."

"Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Her eyes light up and she can't help but smile at the fact that he's understood her reference. "You know that film?"

"I love that film."

She links her arm through his as they make their way back towards Talybont, a group of boys passing them with a rugby ball and several cans of beer obviously trying to make the most of the late summer sunshine. "You know what, Tom Branson, I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

_** -xxx- **_

It's about three in the morning when the pair of them finally make it back to halls, staggering into the kitchen on unsteady legs and polishing off the last of their chips (which the taxi driver hadn't been too impressed about them bringing into the back of his cab) and leaving the polystyrene cartons on the table ready to be cleaned up come morning before heading off to bed. Tom has just about managed to change into his pyjamas when a still drunken Sybil slips into his room.

"Hi," she says huskily. "Can I come in?"

"You're already in."

"Smart arse," she replies and makes herself at home by crawling into his bed, tugging him down by the hand in a not so subtle hint for him to join her. "Oh, don't look at me like that," she slurs. "I just want to talk... and to cwtch."

"Cwtch."

"Mmhmm," she nods. "Cwtch. Lovely word... it means cuddle. It's Welsh, did you know that? That Welsh boy taught me it, do you know the one I mean?"

Tom chuckles. "Seeing as how we're in Wales, we met lots of Welsh boys tonight."

"That blonde girl fancies you. Ellie?"

"Eddie."

"That's the one... as in Monsoon. Eddie and Patsy. Do you fancy her?"

"Go to sleep, kid."

"Stop calling me that," she replies, suddenly a little bit more alert. "My name is Sybil."

"Sybil."

"Sybil... and you're Tom. And you're my friend... I'm glad we're friends," she add, burying herself closer to him as he wraps his arm around her shoulder. "And we'll be friends forever, right?"

"Yeah," he replies quietly as she drifts off to sleep. "Yeah, we will."

It is indeed the last time he ever calls her kid, but the first of many nights that they'll sleep side by side.

_**-xxx-**_

Sybil stares down at her train ticket left out on the table pending inspection by the guard, that little orange and yellow ticket with the name of a place she's called home emblazoned on it in black letters demanding almost all of her attention. She never left Cardiff in the end - she may have been born and raised in rural Yorkshire, but it was the Welsh capital where she had grown up. Even after everything that had happened between her and Tom all those years ago, she had managed to build a life for herself there and it was impossible to leave. For the first time in so very long, she wonders what would have happened if things had been different - if that morning hadn't happened the way that it did and her whole world come crashing down in just a fraction of a second. What if her train had been delayed or she'd chosen to go to York instead of Cardiff? What if she'd never left at all? So many seemingly simple decisions had shaped the course of her future that day and now, twenty years later, she finds herself facing that same quandary. Taking what is perhaps one of the biggest risks she's made in years, she pulls her phone out of her bag and texts Tom, asking her to meet her later that evening. However he responds could potentially change her life and it's with baited breath that she sits and waits for his answer, all the while toying with the wedding ring that could very well have been his...


End file.
